The Blue Orb
by Raablyn
Summary: It was bad enough when two teens switched bodies. It got worse when CattiBrie, Drizzt, Wulfgar, and Regis got dragged into the mess.Things went horribly wrong when Danica, Bruenor, Jarlaxle, Entreri, Dinin, and Zaknafein got mixed in too. UPDATED!
1. Prologue

The Blue Orb.

_Disclaimer: I own Randi and Lora, but no one else._

_Summery: It was bad enough when two teenagers switched bodies. It got worse when Catti-Brie, Drizzt, Wulfgar, and Regis got dragged into the mess.Things went horribly wrong when Danica, Bruenor, Jarlaxle, Entreri, Dinin, and Zaknafein got mixed in too. Insert a magical Orb that may be to blame and a confusing quest. And Vierna may be the only one who can save them. But will she? How will they ever get out of this mess? Can Cadderly or Dwahvel help?_

_Yes, I know I have so much stuff to do, but I will do it, I know exactly where everything else is going . . . almost . . . and I just realized this idea. Hope you enjoy. _

_Prologue._

"What is it?"

Randi crept closer to it, shielding her eyes. Upon the black and bloody alter sat a ball of glass or crystal, about as tall as the teenager's hand and just as wide. As she approached, it began to glow a soft, hazy blue.

"I don't like it." Lora hissed between clenched teeth, her green eyes watching the sphere with open hostility. One thin hand ran over her torn tunic and pants, tracing the tears in the faded fabric and the bloodstains of the foes. "We shouldn't be here." she added.

"Sssst!" Randi, brown eyes wide in her sixteen-year-old face, cast a look around. "We just escaped those zombies! Do you want them to come after us? Again?"

"Nope." The humans shuddered. Lora shook her head, copper hair brushing her shoulders. "Lets just grab the dang thing and run. Please, Randi!"

Randi licked her lips. "Jabez said to get the Orb." she muttered bitterly."Yeah, we'll get it. But, after all this trouble, we should just keep it!"

"Whatever!" Lora scowled, wringing her hands nervously."Just get it!"

"Don't rush me!" Randi tugged at one of her black, kinky curls with a dark hand. She was scared, though she didn't dare admit it.

The girls' thoughts were interrupted by a CRACK and a BOOM.

"GET IT!" screamed Lora. "The ceiling's coming down! Just GET IT!"

"FINE!"Randi screamed right back at her forward, she reached the ancient altar and stared at the Orb for a moment. Maybe it was her imagination, but the Orb seemed to be glowing brighter . . .

Damn it all, she didn't have _time_ for this! Cursing, the female reached out and snatched the Orb from its holder. For a second, icy, searing, shocking pain vibrated through her fingertips, her hands, her bones, her veins . . . but before her senses could accept the pain, the hurt, it was gone, vanished, leaving no trace that it had ever been there. Gone so quickly that Randi doubted that it had been there at all. She hugged the orb to her chest and ran . . .

The ceiling was falling . . .

And falling, and falling, and falling. It crashed about her, around her, smashing the bones of the skeletons that reached, grasped, for a hold on her robes . . . her head hurt from the wound that wretched goblin had given her . . . ah . . . she was on her knees, her legs refusing to move . . .

She heard, dimly, Lora cry out in pain. She saw, dimly, the floor crack and split. She tasted, faintly, the raised dust and ash . . . she felt, dreamily, the Orb slide from her fingers as the pain worsened, driving a dagger into her skull, misting over her eyes . . .

The world went dark.

Lora, looking on, screamed out as Randi's fingers loosened as she fell, jarred from her grasp. The Orb tumbled, struck the ground, and shattered with an unholy hiss . . . the light, the glow, seized the nine shards of broken Orb and clung on . . . and she felt a ringing in her ears . . .

Ah . . .

Lora fainted on the cold, cracked stone floor of the temple.

* * *

_This is the prolouge, so it is supposed to be short. _

_More is coming, I promise._

_Oh, both Randi and Lora are 16. Just so you know._

_Please review._


	2. Part One: Chaos

_Disclaimer: Lora and Randi are owned. Nothing else is. Thanks._

_The switches are:_

_Randi X Lora, __Catti-Brie X Jarlaxle,__Wulfgar X Dinin, __Regis X Drizzt, __Entreri X Danica, and __Zaknafein X Bruenor._

_Just so it doesn't have to be confusing._

_And, yes, a lot of people are out of character, but you can understand . . . _

**Part One: Chaos**

_Chapter One_

_In Which Everyone Discovers That All Is Not Exactly Right . . . _

Menzoberranzan. Lovely. Terrifying. Hostile.

Home.

Jarlaxle, leader of Bregan D'aerthe, woke from a dark sleep of his homeland with a shuddering jerk.

"Ah!" he hissed between clenched teeth, giving his legs a kick. Without warning, a powerful jolt had struck through his dreams and had snapped him into reality. Cold, shocking reality . . .

Shaking his head into the pillow, Jarlaxle reached up - more clumsily than usual - to stroke his long, thick hair and huddle away from the chill wind beneath the blankets. He closed his eyes . . .

Than snapped them open.

Wait a minute. Wait a Lolth-damned minute.

He didn't have hair. And this was the Underdark: it was not supposed to be cold, and there was no wind here.

And since when did he have this odd feeling on his chest . . . ?

Jarlaxle sat up in bed, gasping. His hands went to his head, feeling thick, long hair. His hands went to his eyes, feeling them, noticing that they were no longer tilted but narrower. His eyes went dizzily around him, taking in the dwarvish surroundings, the table, the bed . . .

"Xsa." he breathed, and the voice . . .

He had heard it before, but it wasn't his . . .

It was female.

Jarlaxle sprinted out of the bed and out the room, staggering through halls and doors, completely befuddled. What was going on? What?

_WHAT_?

He nearly ran into a mirror. Gasping, Jarlaxle leaned forward studying the reflected.

He gasped, closed his eyes, drove his fists into them, and hesitantly opened them again.

Still the same.

No change.

Oh, gods above.

Catti-Brie, the human female, adopted daughter of Bruenor Battlehammer, stared back at Jarlaxle.

Jarlaxle stared at the mirror. He took a deep breath, screamed for all he was worth, and fainted dead away.

* * *

Over the world and under it, others were making similar discoveries. 

Catti-Brie - the real Catti-Brie - discovered to her horror that she was now a black-skinned male drow with an outrageously plumed hat and no Icewind Dale in sight. Stumbling out of the room, Jarlaxle's bed chamber, she ran into another dark elf, who gasped at the sight.

"I . . . " she began in common.

"I . . . " he began in common.

They stared at each other.

"Who are you?" the male asked, looking every bit as confusd as she.

"I-I'm not Jarlaxle . . ." she stuttered, gesturing to her drow body. "My name is Catti-Brie . . . "

"Catt-Brie!" the male dark elf flung himself on her. "Oh, thank Tempus! Catti-Brie, it'sme!"

"Wha-?" she was still getting over the fact that a drow had just hugged her.

"Wulfgar!" he cried.

"Wulfgar!" she echoed. "How did you- what the- how did I- what is . . . ?"

"Jarlaxle?" a timid voice spoke, and the two spun humans in drow bodies spun around to see a liutenit of Bregan D'aerthe staring at them, mouth gaping. "Dinin Do'Urden . . .?"

Wulfgar realized what this must have looked like. A male member of Bregan D'aerthe hugging Jarlaxle . . .

He and Catti-Brie were spared the embarressment of explaining by the drow's body suddenly keeling over into a faint.

"But," she whispered suddenly, horror dawning on her. "If we're here . . . then who's in _our _bodies?"

* * *

Dinin Do'Urden, once elderboy of House Do'Urden,could not express his horror at waking to find his slender drow form had suddenly become a hulking humanlike one, a human one that was lying in a bedroom that was certainly not in the Underdark, much less Menzoberranzan. 

Nor could he express his terror at stumbling out of his room to find Drizzt, his traitorous brother, and a halfling standing and gaping at each other in the middle of the hall.

"But . . . " Drizzt was stuttering. "That's my body . . . "

The halfling stared at the hated traitor. "And that's mine . . . ah . . . "

"Drizzt?" Drizzt asked, reaching out to touch the halfling's hair.

"Regis?" the halfling gaped at the drow.

"What happened?" they both burst out at the same time.

Suddenly, a scream split the air, as well as a _thud_. Both Drizzt and the halfling whirled around to see Dinin.

"Wulfgar!" cried out Drizzt-who-was-really-Regis. "I didn't hear you wake up . . . "

"Wulfgar?" Dinin repeated, confused. "I'm not . . . " then he remembered the human body.

"Did you switch, too?" Drizzt-who-was-really-Regis asked. "Drizzt and I appear to have switched bodies, you see, I'm really Regis . . . "

His voice trailed off as they both studied the barbarian.

Dinin was spared the pains of inventing a story to go along with this insane scenario by a loud, girlish shriek from the next room. Bruenor staggered out, looking wildly about.

"Drizzt!" he gasped, laying eyes on the drow, who was really Regis in Drizzt's body. "You . . . ?"

"I what?" both Drizzt-who-was-really-Regis and Regis-who-was-really-Drizzt answered.

" . . . am I dead?" Bruenor asked, staring around in confusion.

"No . . . "

Bruenor suddenly ran over to Drizzt-who-was-really-Regis-in-Drizzt's-body and seized him around the middle. "My son!" he cried out.

" . . . . ?" was the replies he got.

"Don't you recognize me?" Bruenor demanded.

"Wait . . . " Regis gaped. "Zak?"

"Zak?" Dinin-who-was-in-Wulfgar's-body mouthed.

"Who's Zak?" Regis-who-was-in-Drizzt's-body-and-currently-being-hugged/strangled-by-Bruenor-who-was-really-Zaknafein asked.

"Zaknafein Do'Urden!" Drizzt-who-was-currently-residing-in-Regis's-body answered. "My father! You're alive! YAYYY!"

Everyone gaped as Regis-who-was-really-a-very-happy-Drizzt began to dance around the room very, er, happily.

It was then that a newly awakened Jarlaxle-who-was-in-Catti-Brie's-body came around the corner.

"Where's my hat?" he muttered.

Dinin simply stared around at everyone.

"What is going on?" Regis-who-was-in-Drizzt's-body asked hopelessly.

"I believe," Drizzt-who-was-in-Regis's-body said as he continued dancing, "that we have all, inexplicibly, switched bodies with another person.

"I'm Drizzt." he continued, gesturing to his halfling body. "I have somehow switched places with Regis."

"I'm Jarlaxle." snarled Jarlaxle-in-Catti-Brie's body, not appreciating being woken up at such an hour, crisis or no."And I'd like to know what happened."

"My name is Zaknafein." Zak-in-Bruenor's-body rolled his eyes. "If you haven't already guessed."

"_Daddy_." Regis-who-was-really-Drizzt turned happy, sparkling eyes to Zak-who-was-in-Buenor's-body and flung his arms around both both Zak and Regis.

"Zak?" Jarlaxle's mood disappeared in a trice. "Abbil?"

"Nice to see you too, Jarlaxle!" Zak-who-was-oh-you-know-this-by-now grinned at his friend. He sniffed. "This is such a happy day."

"Jarlaxle?" Dinin-who-was-in-Wulfgar's-body asked, some measure of hope returning.

"Dinin?" Jarlaxle-who-was-in-Catti-Brie's-body grinned. "Another abbil!"

"DININ?" both Zak-not-bothering-by-now and Drizzt-read-the-last-one cried out.

"No!" Zak scowled.

"Not you!"

"I hate you!" Dinin spat at Drizzt (the real one in Regis's body; Dinin is smarter than he looks). "You were always so PERKY! Grrr! Lolth, I hated you!"

"Wow, you haven't read any of the later books, have you?" Zak asked Dinin.

"Well, you murdered innocent faeries!" cried out Drizzt-who-was-in-Regis's-body. "And it was all YOUR fault that a young, insane elf chick chased me all the way through a whole book to die at my blade!"

"Shut up, all of you." Regis-who-was-in-Drizzt's-body scowled. "So we're all mixed up. The question is . . . where are the others?"

* * *

_Well . . . that concludes the first chapter . . . _

_Please review!_


	3. Chapter Two

_Disclaimer: no, don't own the characters._

_I CAN FINALLY, FINALLY UPDATE!_

_Thank you for all the hilarious reviews! I loved them! You all get a cookie! (passes out cookies)._

_Interesting Pointless Fact; the drow word "xenca' " means "frog guts."_

_. . . oh, and yes, I realize that several of the characters in this story are . . . ah . . . dead. I have taken the liberty to include them nevertheless! An explanation shall be given in the story . . . and if it doesn't satisfy you, gentle reader, feel free to make one up._

_Chapter Two_

_In Which More People Discover That Something Is Definately Not Right In the World._

Atremis Entreri had gone to sleep worrying about whether or not he would be able to wake up early enough, due to the fact that Jarlaxle, ex-head of Bregan D'aerthe (he'd given it over to Kimmy, ah, er, Kimmuriel in SotS) had returned to Menzoberranzan to help solve a crisis involving a furious Hazanithra Z'raen, a few of the members of Bregan D'aerthe, and, strangely enough,a purple-and-pink lizard gone rogue (members of House Qed'Vursys were suspected, though nothing could be proven). Artemis wanted to wake up early so that he could use a scrying mirror that only worked from 1:00 AM to 3:00 AM. He wanted to scry on Jarlaxle. That can only be expected.

What Artemis Entreri had been expecting when he woke up was to be half-asleep, lying on his own narrow bed in a cheap inn room.

He did not expect to wake up and find himself in a comfortable, plushy bed next to one Cadderly Bonaduce.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

It was Entreri's scream, and it was not. It was not his voice that screamed; nor was it his mouth that he had screamed out of. Gasping, he scrambled out of the bed and to his feet. Panting, he looked down.

And screamed again.

"Danica?" a half-asleep Cadderly rolled over and looked up. "Are you all right?"

Artemis Entreri stared at Cadderly. He gaped at Cadderly. He pressed his hands to his eyes and shook his head frantically.

But there was a problem with that.

The hands were not his hands. The eyes were not his eyes. The head was not his head.

Creepy, eh?

Artemis Entreri had never, ever, in his entire fourty years, expected to wake up in the body of one he hated.

"Danica?" Cadderly reached out to touch Artemis. "What is wrong?"

This was too much. Artemis gaped at Cadderly, jerked away from his touch, and ran, screaming in pure terror, from the room.

* * *

"Do you think they know?" 

"Of course not! It was a harmless prank, and, after all,the lizard _did_ do it'sjob!"

"It killed three other Z'raens besides the one we wanted to kill, one of them a cleric! Wait . . . _harmless_?"

"So? Think of it as a bonus."

"When did you ever aim for . . . oh, never mind. I wanted to kill Vynnessia."

"Which one was she? The big one or the ugly one?"

"The stupid one!"

"Ah. I should have known. You always seem to want to kill the stupid one, no variation, no imagination. . . hey, that rhymed. . . no matter, though, our spies in Bregan D'aerthe will bring her ugly corpse to us to dispose of as we will, the nasty gnome-helping name-calling chit."

"I still wanted to kill her. She called me a-"

"Shut up! Someone's coming!"

"Yes mistress."

* * *

Wulfgar and Catti-Brie stared at each other from behind the door as the two dark elf females exited the room. 

"What was the point in hearing what we just heard?" Wulfgar asked Catti-Brie, his voice a quiet whisper. Catti-Brie shrugged.

Wulfgar shivered as he watched the shoulders of one Jarlaxle rise and fall. It was hard to remember that Catti-Brie, his friend, was inside that body when he looked hard at him . . . er, her. It was also hard to remind himself that he was Wulfgar, when the hands and knees that were shaking were not his own, but slender drow limbs.

It was so odd to move his arm and not feel the weight of his thick, heavy musceles. It was odd to look out of those red drow eyes from a height much shorter than he had always done. It was odd to take a step, and not move as far forward as he usually did.

No. It wasn't odd.

It was just plain weird.

* * *

"THIS IS AN UTTER AND COMPLETE CATASTROPHE!" Drizzt yelled in Regis's tiny piping voice. "AN UTTER AND COMPLETE CATASTROPHE, I TELL YOU!" 

"WHAT?" Regis, ten feet away, yelled in Drizzt's voice.

"THIS IS HORRIBLE!" Drizzt screamed to the air. "TERRIBLE! ATROCIOUS!"

"_WHAT?" _Jarlaxle stuck his - er, Catti-Brie's - head next to Regis's. "WHAT DID YOU SAY?"

"I _SO_ HATE THIS!" Drizzt wailed, waving Regis's plump hands about. "HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO HOLD A SCIMITAR IN THESE HANDS?"

"HEY!" Regis shrieked over the wind in Drizzt's admirably shrill tones.

"WHY ARE WE YELLING?" Zaknafein stuck his head above Jarlaxle's. "WE'RE ONLY TEN FEET APART!"

"Wait a minute . . . " Regis twisted Drizzt's head to look up at Zak, who was trapped in Bruenor's body. "How are you on top of us?"

Dinin, coming in from the other side, stared at the weird picture of a drow, a female human, and an old dwarf- that is to say, Regis, Jarlaxle, and Zak - standing on top of each other, barely balancing in Icewind Dale's winds. The drow attempted to creep forward, and, due to the bulky human body his was in, failed miserably, but Drizzt was to miserable to notice and the other three were too occupied in balancing to notice.

BOOM!

"Correction." a large green emereld spoke sadly. "The other three were toooccupied _losing _their balance to notice. So much for the all-knowing emerald who you don't know is narrating. Sorry."

"What?" Regis asked, sprawled beneath Jarlaxle in Catti-Brie's body and Zaknafein in Bruenor's body, his eyes fixed on the foot-long, glowing green emereld.

"Oh, vendui. Did I introduce myself?" the emereld droned on in a bored, female voice. "Of course I didn't. Not to some ma'lai colnbluth like you. Iblith, all of you, iblith! But since I am here, I might as well introduce myself. Or I might not. H'm. Oh, the choices. While I decide wheather or not to decide if I should introduce myself, kindly wonder how it is I am able to speak Common. Such a brutish tongue. Eh, rivvil? Little rivvil, must be a halfling, oh, they dropped me with a halfling, so much for the so-called mercy of Lolth."

Everyone gaped silently at the surprising emereld.

"I know that voice . . . " Drizzt mused to himself, placing his chubby chin in his chubby hand. Dinin, Zaknafein, and Jarlaxle turned to stare at the emereld.

"You probably do." the emerald answered smoothly.

"No, I'm serious, I know that voice." Drizzt took a step towards the emerald.

"Really? Wow, if you hadn't just said that, I would be more amused then I am now." the emerald gave a huge sigh. "Jeez, baby brother, it's not that hard to puzzle out. All you have to do is read the words after the title."

"You know what?" Zak who-was-currently-in-Bruenor's-dwarfy-body came up beside Drizzt. "That voice _does_ sound familiar."

"Males." muttered the emerald to itself. "So predictable."

Dinin's eyes went so very wide. "Oh . . . no . . ." the drow-in-human-body took a good three steps back. "Oh, no . . . Oh, no . . . not you . . ."

"Hi family!" Vierna cooed through the emerald.

"Vierna!" Drizzt cried. "I knew it!"

"Vierna!" Dinin screamed. "Nau! Nau nau nau nau nau nau nau! Not you! Not again!" he dropped to the ground and curled into a fetal position."Don't driderize me, I'll be a good boy, I promise!"

"Vierna?" Zak wondered. "Who is . . ." Jarlaxle slapped Zak across the face. "Idiot, even I know her!"

The others stared blankly.

"No, I'm serious, I don't know who Vierna is!" Zak moaned. Jarlaxle slapped him again.

"My sister!" Drizzt spread his hands wide. "First my daddy, then my brother, then my sister . . . actually, come to think of it, I'm not that happy to see you. Not at all. You nearly destroyed all that I held dear! And you killed Wulfgar!"

"Um, Drizzt, he's hear." Regis jabbed a finger at Dinin, who was stuck in Wulfgar's body. Jarlaxle slapped Regis across the face. "Idiot, that's Dinin."

"Hi y'all." Vierna's voice became monotone. "Jarlaxle, slap that halfling harder if you ever want to get anywhere in life." Jarlaxle grinned and slapped Regis harder, then promptly realized that the action wasn't very characteristic of the oppertunistic Jarlaxle and suddenly stopped. "Drizzt, is it really my fault if your stupid human lackey got in the way of that yochlol?" Drizzt considered and nodded vigerously, but Vierna ignored him and continued."Zaknafein, shame on you, I'm hurt that you don't recognize your own daughter, so I'll just have to stick you at the top of my hit-list." Zak's eyes darted about wildly. That expression looked so strange on him that Drizzt stopped nodding and stared."Dinin, grovel and maybe I won't hurt you. Maybe." Dinin spread out on the floor and whimpered a little. "Everyone else, I don't give a damn who you are, just stay quiet and obedient and we'll all get on fine. Except the halfling currently stuck in my baby brother's body. I don't like you at all. You're number two on my hit list. Under Zak, of course. All clear?"

"Yes ma'am." they all chanted.

"_And stop being monotone_!" Vierna screamed suddenly, making everyone jump.

"But why are _you_ here?" Drizzt asked suddenly. "Didn't you die?"

"Yes. I did. Painfully. Can we talk about something else? Dying was highly uncomfortable." Vierna's voice adopted an almost motherly tone.

"I would think it would be." Regis muttered at the same time that Zak said, "Yes it was."

"Yep." Vierna's emerald pulsed brighter. "Dinin, I forget if you died or not, but don't answer because I don't care."

"Xas jabbress." Dinin's voice was muffled by the snow. The words _yes mistress_ appeared in black ink on the snow.

"Wow!" Regis stared at them.

"Cool." Jarlaxle nodded as he slapped Regis a third time. "I love this job."

"Anyway, you're not the only ones with bodily problems." Vierna went on sweetly. "Two girls are having similar problems. Find them, and maybe you'll get your answer."

"Why are you helping us?" Drizzt picked up Vierna, cradling the emerald. "Have you-"

"No, Drizzt dear, I'll always belong to the Dark Side." Vierna sighed again. "If only you knew the _power _of the Dark Side! I would ask you to join me, but I'm dead, and you're too like a paladin for me to get along with you."

"Okay." Drizzt-who-was-trapped-in-Regis's-body nodded.

"Now, we have a long road in front of us!" Vierna's voice was whiplike. "To bed! Now! Chop chop! All of you! Move!"

"But it's noon!" Dinin whined.

"Too bad!" Vierna breathed. "We're starting off bright and early tomorrow on some darn quest for a thing that I, being the cryptic drow female that I am, shall not tell you males anything about. And you'll need new uniforms? Pink, maybe? Green? Blue? Maybe green with pink polkadots. Does that sound fun?"

The others' eyes grew large. Regis whimpered something beneath his breath.

"Too bad." Vierna snarled again to the halfling-in-drow-body. "Now, my minions, go to sleep, or else I'll loose the hordes of rabid fangirls on you!"

At these words, they all dropped immediately, curled into fetal positions, and closed their eyes shut. Drizzt huddled in the snow, along with Regis; the others curled up against the stone. No one moved, though it was bitterly cold.

"I love threats." Vierna would have smiled. But alas, being mouthless, she simply laughed.

* * *

_hope you liked. _


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